Unit X Line of Enquiry Post

Once we had the plan for our animated piece for William Wilde, we put together a storyboard and presentation to pitch our idea to the client. To our delight he liked our idea and gave us some points on what to improve upon. Originally in our story, Cinderella’s dress was going to just tear around the legs and Cinderella then just decides to go with it, but the client suggested that she then rips off a chunk of the dress to become a sexy empowering look that still employs the ragged aesthetic we were going for. The client also warned us on what colours to use, we had shown an example piece that used a very bright yellow and green, saying that it looked a little to citrusy he recommended that we look at the colours that he’s used in his own collections. From this comment, we went and created a colour palette based on William Wilde’s work which we then compare to the 60’s colour palette we had already taken and used the colours that we felt would best encapsulate both styles to use within our animation.

The next step was then to shoot our live action pixilation in front of the green screen. To find a model to use for Wilde’s work we went on his Instagram and found a model (@megcase_) that he had previously worked with and were able to contact her and ask her if she would be willing to work with a group of students. As we were unable to get a hold of a green screen studio, we set about to make on most of the shots on the day of shoot as I directed the model into the positions we wanted as we required her to stand in positions models aren’t normally used to using, such as asking her to hold in-between poses to make the animation smooth as well as some more over the top expressions to give the piece a more exaggerated animation feel as opposed to it just looking like a jumpy live action film.

our own, we had a large green screen which we draped over some walls and we then secured the screen down with tape to create an infinity curve for the model to stand on which would help when compositing as it would remove hard edges which create shadows. I took charge

Once the shooting was finished we had to go through and edit what we had taken, in some cases we had multiple takes of different shots where we had to decide what looked better, and some poses we found didn’t look as good in sequence as they did on the day of the shoot, but we had purposely taken more shots than we needed to make up for this foreseen occurrence. Additionally certain frames needed to be held longer than the 10 fps frame rate that the film has to give it its choppy look. These frames were the key poses or the story telling poses that we wanted the audience to register fully and we didn’t just want lost in a sea of images and so they were held for either 2 frames orpremiere. The editing had to be done first before we could begin work on the effects and compositing to go around the model as we needed to know what the exact footage was that we would be applying the effects and animation to.

Lastly we made a plan of how we would approach the rest of the task in terms of time management and sorting out when we needed different assets by, we decided to all work on a scene at a time so that that way the compositing on each shot could be done as we go along rather than being pushed until the last minute. Additionally we also discussed the idea of meeting up with the client again and asking for additional feedback to make sure that the finished product is in line with his brand and make sure it is a piece he I happy to have his name on. 

in some cases 3 frames until we found what looked right. I was the person to take lead in the editing on

Unit X Research Post

Ladybird 1964

We have been given the task of creating a 30 second piece of animation based on the classic tale of Cinderella and inspired by the work of fashion designer William Wilde. The project is a live brief set by William Wilde himself, who gave us some background on his relationship with Cinderella growing up, he spoke about how one of his earliest memories of the tale was a Ladybird book from the 1960s which, although was set in a fairy tale/ renaissance era, featured many 60s haircuts and styles. He also talked about how an iconic moment, for him, in the Disney version is the image of Cinderella dressed in rags after her sister ripped her dress apart.

Latex Drama Quenn Dress -
 William Wilde

We decided to take these moments that were important to our client and design our ideas around them. Upon researching who William Wilde is and discovering that he likes to work with latex we chose to place our Cinderella into a latex dress to go to the ball. Researching 60s fashion allowed us to see the kind of dress we wanted to go for for the look of the piece, but of course then rendered in latex to fit with the client. William Wilde had said that he wanted the piece to be somewhat humorous and also did not shy away from the fact that the latex material he used was somewhat unpractical as it rips very easily. Due to this, we thought it would be funny if after being transformed from rags to her beautiful latex ball gown, that rips as soon as she moved anyway.

[JTBC2] Taming Ms. Tomboy - Vimeo

Upon further research of a 60s aesthetic that we liked, we came across pixilation style of animation to capture the poses in. To tie these back into a 1960s aesthetic we wanted to go for a colour palette which is very of the era which is very bright and contrasting with heavy uses of primary colours.

An Animation of Chloë Sevigny FW13
 - Vimeo 

paper dress up dolls that children used to play with and thought it had a nice look to it that would work well with the transformation element of Cinderella’s clothes and with the idea of maybe trying different dresses for the ball. We also found some videos that helped us visualise how we wanted the piece to look in terms of combining live action characters with a 2D environment as well as a

Fairly Odd Parents - Nickelodeon

We then set about working out a plot of our video, knowing that we wanted the focus to be on the transformation scene and to show the ripping of the dress. As such at the ball such as the ugly stepsisters be in shock at the girl walking in in a ripped dress and we could have the tagline, ‘It’s not ripped, It’s Wilde.” The stepsisters would also be rendered in the pixilation style but would be men with animated hair and makeup on to give the ugly almost pantomime look we desired. The fairy godmother however would be completely hand drawn in a style not too dissimilar from that of Fairly Odd Parents’ fairies. 

we decided to feature the fairy godmother scene and then her arrival at the ball with a ripped dress, we would have people

Evaluation

Evaluation

We were given the task to create an idea for TV series, short film, feature film, video game or animation of any kind, and to create a pitch bible to pitch the project as well as to actually present your pitch to our tutors as if they were the client. Immediately I knew that I wanted to create an animated television series as I enjoy watching these myself the most, as I like the serialised storytelling that a series allows for. I also enjoy spending time with the same characters and really getting to know them, as opposed to a film where you would only get between 90 and 120 minutes.

The type of shows that I enjoy watching, and so, would enjoy making are quite action centric with serialised content, however I knew that I wanted to try something a little different and avoided creating a typical superhero show. I tried to think of something different, something that would inspire me, and so I looked to dance. I’ve always enjoyed dancing, and attended dance lessons when I was younger, and so I noticed the link between dancing and fight scenes, it was all choreography, so I decided that I would play on the idea that dance was a type of martial art. I always liked the concept of martial arts allowing people to unlock special abilities, channelling their chi, and so I decided that in the world of my show, dancing would allow people to channel a dance energy, I would later name this energy Salto, after the Latin word for dance.

To further my idea of dance being this world’s equivalent of martial arts, I decided that I would have 6 main characters, all proficient in a different style of dance, that would all harness the power of Salto in different ways, similar to all the different practices of martial arts. To start there would be a team of 5 dancers, who would recruit a sixth member to the group. This new character would be the person the audience follows as they are new to the whole world of Salto and would discover things as the audience does. After doing some research I chose the 6 different dance practices that I wanted my series to follow and then based my characters around them; ballet, tap, street dance, Bollywood/ bhangra, capoeira and house dance were the styles I chose.

I consciously chose to have the genders of the dancers be the opposite to what people would expect such as have a male ballet dancer or a female tap dancer to help break stereotypes that people may have about dancing. Additionally, the show would be for both genders and so would have 3 boys and 3 girls on the team. Originally I wanted to be different and have more girls on the team than boys but decided to even it out so to not reinforce the idea that dancing is only for girls. The idea of the show would be to encourage kids to dance and be more active, and would even feature a dance lesson in each episode, where the audience can learn a move alongside Kayley being taught a move to defeat the villain of the episode.

Next I decided to come up with the threat which the team will be taking on and so I toyed between the idea of either an evil dancer or technology of some kind. I decided to combine the two and have the villains be a tech corporation that is ruled over by someone with a clear tie to dance, but who’s origins will be revealed to the team at a later time. When deciding the name of the company I chose the name Malum Corp. as Malum is the Latin word for evil, as well as being Latin for Apple which I thought sort of fit since Apple is one of the company’s that Malum Corp. would parody.

The leader of the group is Liam the ballet dancer is who is unsure about his role as leader, I knew that I wanted a boy to be the leader to further help further the idea that boys can dance to, yet I didn’t want him to be bossy and controlling. I also knew that I wanted the lead character to be a girl and so I chose to have the house dancer be Kayley, the new member of the group. As house dance is a style of dance that incorporates many other styles and so I thought this would be a good style for her to master in, as she will benefit from learning the moves from the other team members. I made the street dancer a girl, Ally, who would have a relationship with Liam and encourage him when he doubts himself. The Capoeira dancer is called Davi who is the comic relief of the group, and then the tap dancer, Jenny, is stuck up and thinks she is better than everyone, for being classically trained, and finds Davi’s presence a continuing annoyance. Lastly, there is Pranit who is the Bollywood/ Bhangra dancer and I the quiet member of the group who is happy to follow by example.

Another part of my show that would help set it apart are the backgrounds being used. I wanted my show to have the look and feel of musical stage show and so I want the backgrounds to feel like a stage set. My background is made up of different backdrops/ set pieces that are all on different planes positioned on Toon Boom in a 3D space, using the multiplane feature. Additionally the show will show the different set pieces moving on and off the stage/ in and out of frame around my characters action, like a set change in a show, to help further the desired feel.

In conclusion, I am quite happy with how my show I was able to develop a show, am satisfied with the result, am looking forward to revisiting this project at some point in the future, and further exploring this world again.

Look Development - Justice Brigade

Here is our Look Development Shot for Animation Process and Practice on the Animation course at Manchester Metropolitan University.
We based our work on a piece of concept art from Captain America Civil War.
The music in this piece is Standoff by Henry jackman from the Captain America Civil War Soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGD_THHYTys&list=PLhqqvo3y1qZ1srt0PRvAf_OE-rgsMT6qe&index=11

test 4

test 3

Test Render